In the 367-year evolution of Harvard University, the College’s curriculum has been reconsidered, reformed and redefined in response to the political, social and economic fluctuations of the surrounding world.

From the smaller questions of pedagogy and specialization to the larger concerns of the College’s place in the global community, Harvard’s curricular reforms have been both broad and narrow in scope, gradual and sudden, momentous and inconsequential.

And on the cusp of yet another curricular review, 25 years after the creation of the Core Curriculum, Harvard College looks over its shoulder at what has been, and forward to what might be.

Today, a “curricular review” is a more formal process. It entails an actual decision on the part of administrators to rexamine the structure and theory of Harvard’s undergraduate education, followed by the formation of committees to conduct extensive research, discussion and debate and to ultimately guide a set of recommendations through the politics of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to adoption.

But in the beginning, curricular change was a slow, gradual process, often the accidental result of a changing student body and environment.

The first education offered to Harvard College students was a three-year trifurcated curriculum: the four students that entered Harvard in 1640 studied the “Liberal Arts,” the “Three Philosophies” and the “Learned Tongues” before earning their bachelor’s degrees.

The mission of the College was seen largely as educating future leaders of the local religious community.

During this period, Harvard had no endowment, students earned their entry by reciting Latin and paid their tuition by bartering goods; and recitation was the preferred teaching method.

Harvard changed little through the 17th century. The study of literature was added. There was an emphasis on logic, rhetoric, Greek, Hebrew, ethics and metaphysics and little focus on mathematics and the natural sciences.

In the 18th century, as New England flourished and the colonies moved towards independence, Harvard’s curriculum was still heavily rooted in religion but began to grow towards a “gentleman’s education,” a general curriculum augmented by private tutors in French and philosophy.

The Revolutionary War, for example, brought Harvard away from practical studies and towards loftier inquiries into ethics and virtues.

But as Harvard became more established as a leader in higher education, it became obvious that substantial changes would not come about naturally, but would have to be actively sought.University President Charles W. Eliot, Class of 1853, was the first president to turn Harvard College into something resembling what it is today: his 1870 reforms established an elective system characterized by flexibility and an expansion in course offerings. Instructors were given a greater degree of autonomy in grading practices and pedagogy.

Harvard’s curriculum operated under the Eliot system for the next 40 years, but its lack of structure eventually led to disorder.

Seeing this, in 1914, University President A. Lawrence Lowell introduced a policy of “Concentration and Distribution,” a system that reflected an ideology that the University’s mission was to create well-rounded students—an education at the intersection of various disciplines.

Lowell’s reforms, which were the predecessors of the distribution requirements and the Core curriculum that would follow later in the century under University Presidents James B. Conant ’14 and Derek C. Bok, required Harvard students to focus a minimum of six of their required 18 courses on one division (their concentration) while also taking at least six courses outside this primary field.